With Head and Heart

The Autobiography of Howard Thurman

Howard Thurman

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 1981
• ISBN:
  9780547546780
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Religiöse Biographien

"One of the great religious leaders of [the twentieth] century" tells his story of growing up under segregation and finding his calling as a minister ( Atlanta Journal-Constitution ). Howard Thurman was a singular man—a minister, philosopher, and educator whose vitality and vision touched the lives of countless people of all races, faiths, and cultures. In his moving autobiography, Dr. Thurman tells of his lonely years growing up in a segregated town, where the nurturing black community and a profound interest in nature provided his deepest solace. That same young man would go on to become one of the great spiritual leaders of our time. Over the course of his extraordinary career, Thurman served as a dean of Rankin Chapel and professor of theology at Howard University; minister of the interdenominational Fellowship Church in San Francisco, of which he was a cofounder; dean of Marsh Chapel of Boston University; and honorary canon of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York. He was deeply engaged in work with the Howard Thurman Educational Trust until his death in 1981. This is Thurman's story in his own inspiring words. "Inspiring... a tale of trial and triumph. It should be read by everyone." —Vernon Jordan, president of the National Urban League "Now we can peer with delight into the soul of this master and grasp some of the sense of religious genius which has been the source of all that blessed teaching." —Rabbi Joseph B. Glaser, former executive vice president, Central Conference of American Rabbis "The reader's admiration for this educator and spiritual healer grows naturally as the story unfolds." — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Thurman leads his readers... with an air of gracious ease and imperturbable dignity." — Kirkus Reviews

1. Morehouse

Morehouse College, where I enrolled in 1919, was founded for black men by the American Baptist Missionary Society and was originally called the Atlanta Baptist College. It was one of several colleges established by various Christian churches in the aftermath of the Civil War as an expression of conscience and concern for the education of freed slaves. Most were located in the South. The exceptions were Lincoln University and Cheyney Teacher Training School, both in Pennsylvania, and Wilberforce University in Ohio. Initially the colleges maintained affiliated secondary schools, because southern states made little or no provision for the public secondary education of freedmen and their children. By the time I entered Morehouse, however, its high school academy had closed, notwithstanding the fact that the first public high school for black children in Atlanta was not opened until 1923, the year I graduated from Morehouse, even though the black population of the city had climbed by that time to nearly eighty thousand.

Traditionally, any student graduating as valedictorian from a Baptist secondary school received a tuition scholarship to Morehouse, as I did. Without this aid, I would not have been able to attend college.

Bill James was the only student I knew when I arrived at Morehouse. He was a gifted violinist, called “Fiddler” by everyone. (Years after, on the faculty of Spelman College in Atlanta, he was director of music and one of the finest interpreters and composers of Afro-American music.) When I saw him the summer before school began, I expressed my hope that we might room together, for I was apprehensive about being far away from home, in an all-male environment for the first time in my life.

As it turned out, I had no choice as to roommates. I was assigned Dick Richardson, a football player on campus, a man’s man and tough. He had a kind heart and gracious spirit and we liked each other at once. He entertained me with football stories. “I threw that fellow so hard,” he would say, “that he dug up potatoes ‘way down in Macon County.”

The routine of life in college was simple. There was a daily chapel, faculty presiding, from 9:30 to 10:00 A.M., Monday through Friday, and on Tuesday nights, immediately after supper, an informal religious meeting, led usually by senior students.

There was no student government, but there were several dominant student organizations. The student managers of the various teams were selected by the athletic association. There was strong competition for managerial jobs because managers could travel with the teams. Meetings of the athletic association were always lively and sometimes stormy, particularly during the annual meeting for the election of officers. The association had a faculty adviser, as did all the student organizations, but there was no mistaking the fact that it belonged to the students.

Another major organization was the Young Men’s Christian Association. The student YMCA at Morehouse was a part of the national student YMCA and affiliated with the Colored Men’s Division of the national organization. The student president of the YMCA was regarded as the religious leader on campus.

The Debating Society was small and prestigious. Morehouse belonged to a debating circle that included Talladega College in Alabama, Fisk University in Nashville, and Knoxville College in Tennessee. These four colleges debated one another annually. As a rule, one did not make the team until senior year. James Nabrit, now president emeritus of Howard University, and I were senior debaters; our coach was Benjamin E. Mays, now president emeritus of Morehouse College.

Although there was no student government, each class had its own elected officers. There was a monthly literary magazine, The Athenaeum, whose editor was regarded as an intellectual and a skilled writer. It was the dream of many students—I was one—to have a poem, a short story, or an essay accepted by The Athenaeum. I shall always remember the thrill of first seeing my name in print as the author of a little poem.

My class published the first senior yearbook in the history of the college, The Torch, in 1923. I was elected editor.

The informal life of the campus was rich and full of ritual. We had our meals together in the large dining room. Seniors were permitted to sit together at senior tables. The food was no better at the senior table, but the conversation certainly was. A favorite pastime at my senior table was a word game. Each day, at our midday meal, one of us would use a new word in a sentence. The rest of us tried to guess its definition, either lexically or from the context in which the word was used. The competition was in deadly earnest: our vocabularies increased with each meal. The library was small by any present standard. Many of the books had been given to the college by retired northern white ministers. Jim Nabrit and I undertook to read every book in the library. He started at the top shelves and I at the bottom, and we worked our way across. We did in fact read every one.

I was profoundly affected by the sense of mission the college inculcated in us. We understood that our job was to learn so that we could go back into our communities and teach others. Many of the students were going into the ministry; many were the sons of ministers, which accounted in some measure for the missionary spirit of the place. But over and above this, we were always inspired to keep alive our responsibility to the many, many others who had not been fortunate enough to go to college. Almost every student taught a Sunday School class in one of the city’s churches. There was no formal worship service on Sunday morning in the college chapel; instead, an early Sabbath service of about twenty minutes took place. After that, we were free to scatter throughout the city to participate in the religious services of the various black churches. These churches welcomed us not only because, as Morehouse men (and some of the pastors had been Morehouse men), we provided leadership and inspiration to the youth, but also because our presence was sometimes an inspiration to the congregation as a whole.

Pervading all was the extraordinary leadership of two men, President John Hope and Dean Samuel Howard Archer. John Hope was a graduate of Worcester Academy and Brown University. His Phi Beta Kappa key, worn from a chain on his vest, was the first I had ever seen. Finally I knew what my high school teacher had meant by the “gold key.” He was the first black man to become president of Morehouse College. Genteel, scholarly, decorous, he talked to us in chapel every Tuesday morning. This constituted perhaps our greatest single course of instruction in the four undergraduate years. His talks spanned the entire field of contemporary life. Although a layman, John Hope was an important churchman. He traveled widely and always brought back to us news of the winds that were stirring in the world far beyond our campus.

He always addressed us as “young gentlemen.” What this term of respect meant to our faltering egos can only be understood against the backdrop of the South of the 1920s. We were black men in Atlanta during a period when the state of Georgia was infamous for its racial brutality. Lynchings, burnings, unspeakable cruelties were the fundamentals of existence for black people. Our physical lives were of little value. Any encounter with a white person was inherently dangerous and frequently fatal. Those of us who managed to remain physically whole found our lives defined in less than human terms.

Our manhood, and that of our fathers, was denied on all levels by white society, a fact insidiously expressed in the way black men were addressed. No matter what his age, whether he was in his burgeoning twenties or full of years, the black man was never referred to as “mister,” nor even by his surname. No. To the end of his days, he had to absorb the indignity of being called “boy,” or “nigger,” or “uncle.” No wonder then that every time Dr. Hope addressed us as “young gentlemen,” the seeds of self-worth and confidence, long dormant, began to germinate and sprout. The attitudes we developed toward ourselves, as a result of this influence, set Morehouse men apart. It was not unusual, for example, to be identified as a Morehouse man by complete strangers, because of this subtle but dramatic sense of self.

Dr. Hope put his signature on us in another way. No man could get a degree from the college until he had conceived and memorized an original oration. We were required to write one each year for four years and were not permitted to graduate until we had given our orations in Friday chapel in front of the student body and the faculty. Occasionally a man would come to his senior year without having delivered the earlier orations. He would then be required to write and deliver all four original discourses during his last year. We were thus trained in public speaking before what was the most critical audience in the world for us—our classmates and professors. If we forgot our lines, there was no prompting. We would have to try again the next week, and the next, until we were able to deliver the speech effectively and well. We learned to think on our feet and to extemporize. Later, during my early postgraduate years, members of the audience would frequently come up to me after one of my talks to say, “You’re one of John Hope’s men, aren’t you?” The Morehouse training was unmistakable.

During my senior year, Dr. Hope invited me to go with him to an interracial meeting at the Butler Street branch of the YMCA (Colored). Present at the meeting, together with a small group of black leaders from the colleges and the wider community, were a handful of southern white liberals. One of these men reported on his efforts to change the seating in the city auditorium on the occasion of a concert by Roland Hayes. Traditionally, Negroes sat only in the balcony or at the very back of the auditorium. This man had persuaded the city fathers to change the seating arrangements so that the line separating the races would be vertical rather than horizontal. The center aisle would be the demarcation line upstairs and down, whites on one side and we on the other. I was so impatient and disgusted with this bit of racial legerdemain that I walked out of the meeting. Dr. Hope followed me. He put his hands on my shoulders and said, “Thurman, I know how you feel about what is going on in there, but you must remember that these are the best and most liberal men in the entire South. We must work with them. There is no one else. Remember.” I did remember, and his advice helped me grow in understanding.

Dr. Hope’s whole tenure as president was accented by such touches. While attending an international missionary conference in Jerusalem, Dr. Hope became friendly with the Anglican bishop of Uganda. They arranged for a Ugandan student of the bishop’s choosing to come to Morehouse for four years on a full scholarship, the bishop to be responsible only for round-trip transportation.

Several years later the bishop chose such a student, arranged passage for him to New York, and advised Dr. Hope when he would be arriving so that a representative of the college could meet him. The letter was misdirected. As a result no one met the young man and he was held on Ellis Island until his passage could be booked to Liverpool and back to Uganda. Weeks later, Dr. Hope underwent major surgery and decided to convalesce on a cruise to Europe. It happened that the ship on which he was traveling was the very one carrying the young African back on the first leg of his long journey home. Dr. Hope had the custom of walking through third class whenever he traveled, to see if there were any black people among the passengers. The two met during one of these walks. Dr. Hope asked him where he was going. The young man said, “My name is Balamu Mukasi. I am returning home in disgrace because a Dr. Hope in America has betrayed my bishop.” Then he told the story. Arrangements were made for Mukasi’s return to America by the next ship. His education at Morehouse was assured. Such a man was John Hope.

If Dr. Hope was the guiding mentor of Morehouse, Dean Archer was the wise, supportive father. He stood over six feet tall and exuded vitality, tempered by a glowing warmth of spirit. The men of the college honored and liked President Hope. They revered and loved Dean Archer. Wherever Morehouse men of his period come together even today, each one has his special story to tell about “Big Boy,” as we called him.

Dean Archer was a great teacher. Not only did he plumb the mysteries of mathematics and the intricacies of the syllogism (he taught mathematics and logic), but he helped us define the meaning of the personal pilgrimage on which we were all embarked. One incident, also involving an African student, reveals perhaps better than any other the great heart of this beloved man. The student was supplementing his small scholarship by working in the college kitchen. His supervisor was the steward, a difficult and overbearing man. Tensions between the two had intensified to such a degree that the young man broke under the pressure.

One evening during supper, he came into the dining room armed with a pistol, asking for the steward. He went directly to the faculty table. As if by a single command, everyone, students and faculty alike, ducked under his own table—everyone, that is, except for one professor who was known for his starched collar and cuffs and highly dignified demeanor. Nevertheless, when he discovered that he alone faced the student’s gun, he also scrambled under his table. The story goes that as he did so, he shoved one of his female colleagues aside, saying, “I’m sorry, but you’re a lady, he won’t shoot you. We’ll have to exchange places!”

At length, the young man was persuaded to put his weapon down and was sent to his room. A discipline committee was formed on the spot, which voted then and there to expel him. Big Boy asked them to reconsider, and when they refused, he asked which of them would take responsibility for paying the student’s fare back to Africa. There were no volunteers. Big Boy then invited the student to his home, where he and Mrs. Archer gave him the care he so badly needed. They fed him and put him to bed on the sleeping porch. After a few days, his emotional balance restored, he returned to the dormitory. The incident was soon forgotten by everyone—except that troubled student, who would never forget the kindness of Dean Archer.

How we loved him! Another student, whom Big Boy had expelled for cause, said to me as he was leaving the campus for good, “Before I leave, I must say good-bye to Big Boy. I don’t want him to think I hold it against him because he had to send me home. I don’t think Big Boy would do anything to hurt anybody.”

During my senior year, I had a disciplinary encounter with Big Boy myself. One evening at supper I was suddenly overcome with loathing for the grits and gravy on my plate. I walked out. As if by prearrangement, all the men at my table followed me out of the dining hall. The revolt was spontaneous, yet I was reported to the discipline committee as the ringleader, with a recommendation that I be suspended. I was not advised of this until the next day, when the dean invited me into his office. He said, “Mr. Thurman, you have gathered mud on your escutcheon,” and told me about the action of the committee. “Suppose you tell me exactly what happened.” I told him, he asked no questions, and I never heard of the affair again.

Hope and Archer—what a team!—were pioneers in education: they undergirded the will to manhood for generations of young black men, tapping out the timeless rhythm of “Yes,” which countered all the negatives beating in upon us from the hostile environment by which we were surrounded.

E. Franklin Frazier, the eminent sociologist, began his celebrated teaching career at Morehouse during my undergraduate days. He was a graduate of Howard University, regarded at that time as the capstone of Negro education in America. To be a graduate of Howard University was to be a crown prince. Frazier had very little, if any, experience of the Deep South. Not only was he a graduate of Howard, but he had earned his master’s degree from Clark University, in Worcester, Massachusetts. He had his own classroom, a section of which he converted into a small study. It was lined with shelves that held what seemed to us at the time to be an enormous number of books for one person’s exclusive use. The sight of Frazier at work in that study day and night was a visible example of scholarship for all of us.

Frazier was independent and straightforward. At the end of a football rally, during my senior year and Frazier’s first year at the college, the first chords of “Morehouse College, Bless Her Name” were struck. The singing of this college anthem was the emotional zenith of any assembly at Morehouse. We stood as a man, students and faculty alike. Frazier remained seated. We were outraged. That afternoon an ad hoc committee went to see him to protest his sacrilegious behavior. He listened, and when we had finished, he said, “At the present time, the only thing that Morehouse means to me is a job, nothing more. I am not a hypocrite. When the time comes that this college means more than this to me, I’ll stand for the anthem, but not before.” We were frustrated by his response but impressed. I had never before encountered such unabashed honesty.

Frazier did not participate in the religious services of the college. In the classroom he exercised absolute authority. His lectures were conversational in tone, but highly persuasive. He did not indulge in flights of oratory, but spoke in simple language. He was spellbinding. I had never had a teacher quite like him before. (I had taken a course in municipal government at Columbia University the previous summer and had signed up early for Frazier’s course in Social Origins. My self-image was inflated by the fact that I had earned an A grade in the summer course at Columbia, and had in fact excelled in all my college courses. To put it plainly, I was a nuisance, though I saw myself at the time only as a conscientious student, eager to learn.)

One memorable morning, after Frazier had called the Toll, he turned to me in complete exasperation and said, “Howard Thurman, if Dean Archer wanted you to teach this course, you would be standing where I am and I would be seated where you are. Since he has not made such a decision, I am the teacher and you are the student. From this day forward you are not to speak a word in this course, not even to answer ‘present’ when the roll is called. Understand?” With that, he proceeded with the lecture.

I wrote all the papers and the final examination. My term paper was a study of the profit-sharing system of Hart, Schaffner and Marx, the manufacturers of men’s clothing. Frazier gave me an A for the paper, the final exam, and the course. From that time until his death, we were good friends, serving together for some years on the faculty of Howard University. Neither of us ever referred to this incident, but I shall be forever grateful for the lesson. Humility is taught by such as he.

Both E. Franklin Frazier and Benjamin Mays were young faculty members in their late twenties, not much older than many of us in the student body. I was twenty-three when I finished college. This was the average age of my classmates, though some upperclassmen were older by several years. All of our teachers were not young men from eastern and northern colleges, however. There were many seasoned men who were also inspiring teachers, touching us at a place in ourselves beyond all our faults and all our virtues. They placed over our heads a crown that for the rest of our lives we would be trying to grow tall enough to wear. This was a gift far greater than the imparting of information and facts.

One such teacher was Gary Moore, who taught sociology and conversational French. He was perhaps the first Morehouse man to have his B.A. degree validated by Columbia University. The validation of degrees was necessary at that time because most of the black colleges were not accredited; therefore, students receiving undergraduate degrees at these institutions were required to take a fifth undergraduate year at an accredited college before being accepted for graduate study. Moore was a bachelor and lived in one of the dormitories. He seemed to have time to visit with any student who knocked on his door. He even maintained a small emergency loan fund for students. We could always borrow a dollar or two from Professor Moore to help us over a rough spot. Most of us were in such financial straits that this fund often stood between us and calamity.

Lorimer Milton guided me through my major in economics. He was a graduate of Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C., and received his A.B. and M.A. degrees in economics from Brown University. He was short in stature, with a slight hesitation in his speech. This gave the listener a split second to race ahead and try to complete the word or sentence before Milton could. The result was that one’s mind rarely strayed from Milton’s lectures. We became friends instantly. We came from vastly different worlds, but we met above the timber line where the language of the mind and spirit become universal. Much of my spare time was spent in his dormitory room, where our conversations ranged wide and deep. He had very little interest in religion and social issues as such, but he opened to me exciting possibilities in the world of business and economics and urged me to consider a career in business. He considered me an apt...